<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>the aftermath of girl power station by sauceewrites</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25378201">the aftermath of girl power station</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/sauceewrites/pseuds/sauceewrites'>sauceewrites</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Splatoon</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>3 has a lot of issues, 3 is so awkward and thinks way too much, 3 teaches him new words sometimes its cute, 8 isn't completely fluent in inkling yet, Emotional Baggage, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Male Agent 3 (Splatoon), Male Agent 8 (Splatoon), POV Third Person, Pining, Trauma, Two Shot, agent 3 n 8 live together, did i mention there's a lot of fluff, me? projecting my insecurities onto three? no way you're crazy, oh my god they were roommates, pearl marina and cq are basically all mentions, there's also a lot of angst too oops</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-07-19</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-07-19</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 10:48:03</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,099</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25378201</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/sauceewrites/pseuds/sauceewrites</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>so i google searched “how sensitive are octopus suckers”</p><p>“The arms of the Octopus have suction cups on them that are very tiny. In them are highly sensitive feelers that allow them to touch their environment and to feel sensations from it. The sense of touch they develop from these feelers is amazing.” - octopusworlds.com</p><p>aight okay so *writes an entire hurt/comfort two shot where the tentacle thing is mentioned once*</p><p>hehe enjoy </p><p>cough btw this takes place after the events of octo expansion</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Agent 3/Agent 8 (Splatoon)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>7</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>60</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>the aftermath of girl power station</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The sound of the two Agents’ shoes on the moist concrete stairs echoed throughout the dim passage. A light flickered faintly, far ahead of them. Agent Three swallowed the growing lump in his throat as they descended.</p><p>It had been roughly two months since Agents Eight, Three, Off the Hook and the Captain had kept the destruction of Inkopolis at bay from Tartar. Two months since Eight had left the metro, and one since he had moved into Three’s small apartment. </p><p>He had originally been staying with Pearl and Marina, and they had been very generous hosts towards Eight, but the octoling had found himself frequently getting lost in their large home. They were also often busy with idol business and their news gig, and couldn’t do much with Eight. Not that the agent minded being home alone most of the time, he was used to being left independent; but, he had found himself missing a certain inkling’s face more than he thought he would. </p><p>Thus, he had timidly asked the couple if he could see Agent Three again, and they had happily obliged, taking him to the New Squidbeak Splatoon’s base. </p><p>The base, residing in the outskirts of Octo Canyon, now mostly served as Cuttlefish’s house and an occasional meeting place for the idols and agents, as there was no threat looming over Inkopolis at the moment. The weekly meetings had been reduced to bi-monthly, then monthly as peace remained. The NSS was now practically only remaining together for (infrequent) patrolling of the Valley and Canyon, and just in case any random threats to the city decided to rise.</p><p>So Pearl had texted Marie, who had texted Three. A date and time was set up, and the two Agents had met again. After the initial awkwardness of Three remembering his previous two “run-ins” with Eight, the younger agent had bluntly asked his acquaintance if he could bunk with him. It was both a blessing and a curse that the octoling lacked many social cues after being isolated for so long and learning a new language, but it combatted Three’s awkward, stoic briefness quite nicely. The older agent had accepted, leaving out the fact that he, too, secretly wanted to get to know the other agent better. And Eight, excitedly in his broken Inklish, had thanked the other many times.</p><p>Eight moved in quite promptly after that, and the two agents had only grown closer. But, even after living with the octoling for a month and learning quite a bit about him, Three did not expect in the slightest to wake up this morning with his friend peering into his sleeping face, quietly asking if the inkling wanted to go back to the Deepsea Metro for a bit with him.</p><p>“Eight, why are we going down here again? Didn’t you want to leave the Metro forever..?” Three lowly asked, his voice reverberating through the dank stairwell.</p><p>“I have tests to do yet. ...Don’t really have to, but… They have my memory, I want them back. I just did ones needed to collect thangs, last time.” The octoling stated simply, in his slightly still-broken vocabulary.</p><p>Eight didn’t seem at all bothered going back down to the place he was trapped in for months on end, dying many times, with the system seeming to be against him. The place where fabled escape was cruelly dangled in front of him, egging him on, no matter how slow his progress had become. In fact, Three was probably more anxious for Eight than Eight was for himself.</p><p>But wanting completion of his memories, and most likely, some further closure to his plight underground, was nothing foreign to Three. The older agent’s fully upgraded equipment and his complete Sunken Scroll collection revealed a similar interest. Although it wasn't exactly the same, since Eight’s legitimate past memories were inside the collectibles. Three had no idea how that part of it felt, the “recovering from amnesia a bit more after completing every test” part, that is.</p><p>“Ah… I get it.” Agent Three left it at that, the two approaching the train at the familiar Center Station. </p><p>After the two stepped aboard, C.Q. Cumber slithered over to greet them. “Welcome aboard, Number 10,008 and…” If he had eyes, he would be squinting them. “...associate.”</p><p>Eight gave the squishy conductor a polite smile and a nod, saying nothing. He then led Three to the next car over to sit. The Captain had returned to his normal dwelling on the surface, leaving the car empty excluding Iso Padre and a few weird jellyfish, all of which remained silent upon seeing Eight again. The collector did give the octoling a nod in greeting and a polite smile though, which the other returned.</p><p>Three’s octoling partner went through a variety of tests that afternoon, and a lot of them, to the older agent, seemed cruelly and unusually difficult, not to mention completely unfair. The older agent hadn’t actually been able to see the tests before, as most of his time spent in the metro prior to this was spent unconscious or mind controlled. He had expected the tests to be at least slightly humane.</p><p>He was wrong, at least to his standards.</p><p>As the inkling wasn’t allowed to go into the tests with Eight due to C.Q.’s protocol, he kept contact with his friend via talking Hero Headset to CQ-80. This included having to hear the other get splatted, either by failing a test or getting hit by the sanitized. Eight always assured him it “not hurt that bad,” everytime he asked, but, from having his own experience with the sanitized ink, he couldn’t help but worry for the other.</p><p>Eight was able to pass most of the tests within a few tries, ranging up to a dozen, but there were a few particularly nasty ones that had the octoling spending a heavy chunk of his CQ points. The stations where he had to play Rainmaker or Tower Control alone, and was heavily outnumbered by the sanitized octolings, often took a toll on him. Eight would get thrown out of the test after running out of seconds on the clock for the fourth consecutive time, and curse under his breath in Octarian to let out some of the frustration boiling up inside him. After taking a few seconds to regain his composure, he would grip his weapon again, slide his card, and jump right back through the turnstile. </p><p>There were times where the test taker politely asked Three to stop talking to him while he was testing, as he either needed to concentrate or was so out of breath he couldn’t continue talking; there were also times during the 8-ball stations where Eight asked his friend to take his headset completely off briefly, because the frustration of seeing the sphere which was as tall as he was, and was supposed to be guiding fall one too many times literally made him let loose a scream of complete helpless agitation. Three knew how taxing the process of repetitive failure was on someone’s composure, he didn’t blame the octoling one bit. He also knew he couldn’t do much to help, he just had to let Eight pass the tests on his own, offering the best moral support he could.</p><p>However, there was one station that served as a junction between train lines J and D that was much worse than all the others. Eight must’ve slid his card in that turnstile 30 times already, not counting what he may or may not have attempted in the past. Three could just barely see the test from beyond the station, but he could hear a lot of voices and weapon fire through Eight’s CQ-80, meaning a lot of enemies. His friend had gone silent on the intercom half an hour ago, only his heavy breathing and various notes of pain could be heard. </p><p>Using up all of his respawns for (he didn’t even know, the thirty-second time, maybe?) Eight trudged back through the turnstile, empty handed and defeated. He just stood at the turnstile, facing the test that haunted him so, shoulders slumped, clearly debating whether or not he should keep going. This was a great contrast from his previous attempts, the naive, determined fire in his posture gone. His body and face were splattered with quite a bit of sanitized ink, and he apparently didn’t care that it was burning his bronze skin where it touched his exposed midriff, arm, tentacle, face. </p><p>This concerned Three greatly.</p><p>Standing up from where he sat slumped against the stopped train, Three stepped towards his fellow agent.</p><p>“Eight, it’s getting late. Back in Inkopolis, it’s almost 9pm. We came down here at noon.” That part was fact. Three tried to make his tone concerned instead of accusatory, but he wasn't sure it worked.</p><p>Eight stayed silent, and still.</p><p>“Would you like to go home? I think Crusty’s is still open, if you wanna get some seanwiches for dinner...”</p><p>Eight didn’t react. The ambient sounds from the test below were all that could be heard. Three was logically at a loss for what to say next, so he let his heart control his words for a moment.</p><p>“Please, Eight… I’m… I’m concerned for you. I kinda know what this is like, and… I should’ve asked you to take a break on this one way earlier. I think you… you should stop for the night, you’ve accomplished a lot today… We can always come back another t-”</p><p>Three was silenced when Eight abruptly failed to stifle a weak sob, his previously slack shoulders shaking, his straight posture crumpling to a kneel. He brought his hands to his face, not even caring that the sanitized ink on them was now smearing on his cheeks.</p><p>“Eight!” Three immediately went to him, kneeling to the younger agent’s level and gingerly attempting to take his hands from his face as he trembled. </p><p>Without warning, Eight removed his hands from his face and clung to Three, wrapping his arms tightly around the other and burying his face into the other’s cape. A strangled, gurgly sob forced its way out of him, muffled by Three’s clothing, and he shook with the effort of releasing all the previously bottled emotion. </p><p>The gravity of the situation dawning on him, Three bittersweetly accepted the role of comforter for a bit. Eight was likely just frustrated beyond belief, and the older agent knew that feeling too well. When he was younger, he used to get frustrated at his missions in the same manner, getting progressively more irate with his own performance until the building anger pushed him to tears. Three understood, although there was no way it could be the same. A missing moment from Eight’s past was trapped behind the impossible barrier of succeeding this test.</p><p>Returning the other’s embrace, Three lightly dragged his fingers over Eight’s back in what he hoped was a comforting fashion, which only served to elicit harder sobs from the other. The octoling’s face was buried in the neck of his cape, pink tinted tears squeezing out from his screwed up eyes and staining the thick grey fabric. His largest hair tentacle writhed uneasily from its spot on his head, portraying the intense emotion it’s owner was going through. While the octoling was so close to him, Three realized how frail Eight still was from all of his time stuck down here in the past, and silently made a resolve to make sure the octoling takes proper care of himself from now on.</p><p>Three had never seen Eight like this; shell, he’s never personally seen anyone like this besides himself. It was oddly grounding and reassuring, to be the shoulder to cry on. It also filled him with worry, knowing that the younger agent had either had to break down alone in the past, or had bottled everything until this moment. Three, strangely to him, found himself never wanting Eight to cry or feel this way alone again. He absolutely hated the thought of it, it made his gut wrench in helplessness.</p><p>After a few more minutes of Eight’s heaving sobs, they eventually decreased to hiccups and meek whimpers, and the shaking stopped as well. But Three was going to hold on to the other until the younger agent was ready to let go.</p><p>The moment came, and the octoling’s grip on his torso lessened and then disappeared as he decided to rest his hands in his lap instead, magenta gaze glued to the floor, still sniffling a bit. Silence seemed to echo in the sudden lack of noise.</p><p>“Are you okay..?” Three almost whispered the question.</p><p>“I’m fine… just…” He took a shaky breath in. “Angry. I can’t do it, Three. I’ve gotten so close to finish… they just kill me, or the orb every time.” </p><p>Wilting further from where he sat collapsed on the floor of the station, Eight went on. “I think I could do it, but I was wrong… I’m just so… angry at me, angry at test, angry with everything… I had enough!” He was almost shouting by the end.</p><p>Three knew what the other was feeling, but he could also tell that his octoling friend was getting frustrated at the language barrier and the lack of terms he could use to express himself, as well as at the test. The older agent often taught his younger counterpart new Inklish vocabulary since they had started living together, maybe it would help him right now?</p><p>Gently, he tried to define a word to the other while consoling him, to try and temporarily get his mind off of the test. “Eight, this is a normal feeling. It’s okay to feel like this sometimes. It’s called frustration. Like… angry, but because you have been failing a lot.” Not exactly, but Three thought that would be the best way to explain it.</p><p>“Frost… rayy-shaun?” The octoling accent in his voice, heavy on vowels, was always accentuated when he learned new words.</p><p>“Almost. Frust-ra-tion.” Three kindly corrected.</p><p>“Frustra… tion.”</p><p>“Bingo.” The inkling smiled. He forgot how quick of a learner the other had become.</p><p>Eight made a half-smile back, but it almost instantly disappeared and was replaced by a forlorn, unfocused expression.</p><p>“Eight..?” Three gently called to him, prompting him to reveal what was wrong once again without actually asking.</p><p>The octoling suddenly shook his head, tentacle swaying. Pupils focusing, he looked the other agent directly in the eyes before studying the floor again.</p><p>“It’s just… getting so frustration… remind me of when I was all alone, before you, I mean. I had Captain, and Marina and Pearl, but they don’t...” He met Three’s lime eyes with his again.</p><p>“They didn’t understand me like you do, Three.” Perfect syntax.</p><p>Three could only stare. </p><p>The progress that their relationship has made since getting living together was, honestly, incredible. At first, when he had properly met Eight, the younger agent was greatly intimidated by him, for multiple reasons. The feeling was, firstly, a strength-based intimidation because the octoling’s only memories with him were when they were battling, weapons pointed at each other instead of a common enemy. Then, it had eventually shifted to a more light-hearted awe, Eight thinking that his new friend was on a higher level because he was older, more experienced, and knew lots of things and words that he didn’t. But then, as Eight spent time thinking to himself, piecing together the parts of his own story he had gotten back from those cakes, and the things that the other members of the NSS had told him, he came to realize something.</p><p>Three… was Agent Three. The same agent that had terrorized his people years ago, splatted countless octarians, and, little did Three know until Eight told him, caused multiple perma-deaths due to lack of power to spawn points. After the first realization, the octoling he was living with and was supposed to be helping adapt to the surface had refused to communicate with him for roughly two weeks. Three didn’t blame him though, he himself was shocked and, although he wouldn’t admit it until later, genuinely depressed and disturbed at the thought of being responsible for an unknown count of deaths. He wasn’t able to sleep properly, wasn’t able to eat, couldn’t even think straight, with the person he had quickly grown attached to cutting him off, and a crushing guilt occupying his every thought. Honestly, he was still plagued with it, and occasionally still had nightmares about it, even after Eight had realized that the younger Three didn’t mean to legitimately kill anyone. Eight had broken his silent streak after a while, and the two had talked, gotten some things straight about the story in both of their minds, confessed a few things, and made up. Life went on, and things got better from there, but… </p><p>Never had Three expected Eight to open up to him like this. He felt almost honored in a way, to be trusted by someone who has been through as much as the octoling. It felt nice. It made Three feel stable himself (something he now often lacked,) which came from having to give stability to someone else first. He liked to feel depended on. Maybe it was his nature, or his strong, serious agent side talking, or maybe even his growing adoration for Eight, but it felt so nice.</p><p>It felt freeing too, knowing that the octoling truly and wholly forgave him.</p><p>Three was snapped out of his thoughts by a familiar sensation, heat rising to both his face and his eyes, wetness swiftly gathering at the corners. He couldn’t let himself cry now; he pressed it down for his currently emotionally-fragile friend’s sake. </p><p>“I’m so glad you feel that way, Eight. That means so much to me… I-I’ll be here for you as long as you want me to be.” Despite his efforts, the inkling couldn’t keep the warm, fluffy feeling in his chest from cracking his voice.</p><p>Eight smiled one of those genuine, asymmetrical-fangs-bared smiles, and dove forward to hug Agent Three again. </p><p>“Be here, all the time, for long time… please.” </p><p>And Three hugged back, a silent, happy tear dripping down.</p><p>Amidst their embrace, the younger agent’s stomach growled quite loudly, causing both to giggle and bringing Three’s attention back to the situation at hand.</p><p>“Let’s get outta here, huh?” The inkling asked, standing up and gently dragging his younger counterpart up with him.</p><p>Eight giggled. “Yes, let’s go. I’m super starving!”</p><p>This was the Eight he knew.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>swag. ok so basically chapter two was gOING to be All Fluff but then i kept writing and oops angst happened. anyways thank you for reading, i love you.</p></blockquote></div></div>
</body>
</html>